


truth or dare?

by nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)



Series: me sobbing about critical role [90]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Backstory, Body Dysphoria, Canonical Character Death, Comfort/Angst, Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everything Hurts, F/M, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Character Death, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad with a Happy Ending, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Starvation, Torture, Truth or Dare, Waterboarding, set during the pirate arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 19:46:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18784960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/nonbinarywithaknife
Summary: It’s Jester who asks her the question, purple eyes sparkling, clearly unaware of its weight: “Nott? Why are you so afraid of water?”...The Nein play a game of Truth or Dare one day on the Ball Eater, and Nott tells them about her past.





	truth or dare?

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [One Content, One Sick In Part](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16559222) by [Go0se](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se). 



> seriously, mind the tags. this is a rough one.

They’re all sitting on the deck of the Ball Eater, the gentle orange glow of the setting sun giving the afternoon a surreal quality. It’s a rare moment of downtime for the group, and so they take advantage of it to play a game- truth or dare, at Jester’s suggestion. They’re all surprised that Caduceus knows how to play, but- (“Siblings,” he tells them, something unnervingly close to a smirk on his face, in a manner that’s almost, conspiratorial?) the only one who’s never played before is Yasha, and it’s the work of minutes to explain the rules and acquire her agreement. 

It’s a fun game, especially after Nott decides to make a new house rule: you have to take a swig from her flask if you pass your turn. They’ve been playing for a few hours now, and Nott is pleasantly buzzed when her turn comes around again. She picks truth, this time, as her arms are still a little sore from climbing up to the crow’s nest one handed, and she’s in a pretty comfy spot, Caleb to her left and Jester to her right. 

It’s Jester who asks her the question, purple eyes sparkling, clearly unaware of its weight: “Nott? Why are you so afraid of water?”

Nott tenses, and it feels as though a bucket of ice has been dropped on her head. Apparently her discomfort at the question is obvious, because Jester immediately starts to backtrack, sounding apologetic; “You totally don’t have to answer! I just, you know, was curious, but it’s no big deal! Caleb! It’s your turn now-,”

Nott raises a hand to cut her off. Maybe it’s the drink, the mild fuzziness of her brain. Maybe it’s the atmosphere, the gentle rocking of the ship and the last, faded vestiges of sunlight. Maybe it’s because she’s surrounded by people she trusts- her friends. But Nott decides to tell them.

“It- it’s not a fun story, Jester,” Nott says, and she can hear a tremor in her voice that she can’t manage to hide. 

She has everyone’s attention, now- the amiable conversations all halted. That sucks. It was such a nice, relaxing night, too.  

“But I suppose- you all deserve to know.”

She takes a breath, and then a drink, and then begins. 

“My name is Nott, and I’m a goblin. That’s true. But I wasn’t- wasn’t always this. Before I was Nott, a goblin, I was a halfling woman, named Veth.” 

At this, she twists her hands and feels the spell-  _ disguise self _ \- wash over her. 

She can hear their surprised gasps, and closes her eyes. She knows what they see. A heavyset halfling woman, slightly taller than nott, with a round face and dark skin, with hazel brown eyes and two thick, messy braids. She’s wearing a pastel blue dress, with buttons and flowers embroidered all along the hem. It was her- Veth’s- favorite. 

“Veth… Brenatto.”

She keeps her eyes closed, but tilts her head towards the sky, leans back heavily against the boatside behind her. It’s easier, if she doesn’t have to look them in the eyes, to pretend she’s alone. 

“I was born and raised in Felderwin, and it was- normal. Fine. When i was, uh, nineteen? I met Yeza, and after a few years, we married.”

She hears Caleb inhale, and knows he’s put some of the pieces together; her friend, Yeza, who she rescued from the goblins, her  _ husband _ , Yeza, who she provided a distraction for. He’s so smart. Of course he’d remember her lie. (Not quite a lie, not really. She just- took herself out of the story, really. Perhaps a, a  _ modification _ .)

“We opened an apothecary together, Brenatto Apothecary, we called it, and it was-,”

_ They walk into the empty building together. It’s covered in enough layers of dust to make Yeza sneeze- she fixes his glasses for him after ducking out of the way, and he smiles in thanks. The mid afternoon sun shines through windows with faint, spiderwebbed cracks. The shelving around them is old, creaky, and filled with nothing but cobwebs and spiders, and she’s pretty sure there’s a dead bird in the rafters. “It’s perfect,” Yeza whispers to her, resting his head on her shoulder. She hugs him close and nods. It’s ours, she thinks.  _

“-It was wonderful. It was maybe a year or two after we opened that we had Luke, our son. It was- it was  _ perfect _ , all of it; it was everything I’d ever wanted,”

She pauses, and tries to summon an image of her son’s face. Bright, blue eyes, she knows, so, so smart, the color of the sky, they’d sparkle with questions whenever she and Yeza were working. She  _ knows _ this, knows her son better than she knows herself, and yet- it’s fuzzy. She can’t recall if his hair is a loopy, curled mess like his father’s, or wavy like her own was. Does he have freckles? She- she thinks so, but- she  _ isn’t sure _ . She shakes her thoughts away, and continues. 

“When Luke was three, Felderwin had a, a pretty bad winter. We got through it mostly okay, a few people got some nasty colds, and there was some cabin fever, but no one died. It was- we thought the worst of it was over.”

She opens her eyes but keeps them glued to the deck, boring holes in the wood, follows her own fidgeting fingers. She can’t make herself stop.

“There’s a river, in the south of the tillage, and across it is a- some woods. There was- is, a, a goblin clan that roamed there- they used to tell us ghost stories, warn us that if we strayed too far from home we’d be snatched up and eaten. They never really attacked the village. Occasional raids on the outer fields, but we had the Crownsguard to fend them off, and it was never really- we didn’t worry too much about it. I guess, the winter was worse for the goblins than it was for us, or maybe, maybe they were just being aggressive, I don’t know, but- one day, they attacked town.”

She takes a deep breath, and tries to ignore the thunderous beating of her heart.

“It was the middle of the day. Me and Yeza, we were. We were out on the edge of the treeline, picking some of the hazelnut blossoms like we usually did, and because it was such a nice day, we,” her breath hitches, “decided to bring Luke along with us.” 

Such a  _ smart  _ boy, he’d been asking more and more about what each of the plants they collected did, not even five years old! 

“We never even heard them coming. They grabbed Yeza first, and then me, and I thought, I thought maybe Luke had gotten away, but-”

She swallows roughly. 

“We were with them for a week. Maybe a few days longer, it was- hard, to tell the time. If it’d just been me and Yeza, we, we probably would’ve tried to run right away, but- we had Luke to think of. We couldn’t risk it. 

But eventually, he got sick, a fever, from the filth, the stress, the starvation, some mix of all of it, I don’t know, but- it was bad. We couldn’t stay, so. I caused a distraction and then we ran for it. I remember, it was dark, and so hard to see, but we could hear them. They were so, so  _ loud _ , they made the most  _ awful _ noises, like dragging glass over glass, and their eyes glowed this mustard yellow. It was-  _ horrible _ .” 

She rubs her own eyes in frustration, and tries to push away the sense memory and continue the story. She can still hear their cackling in her dreams. Sometimes, she looks around and realizes that she’s  _ become _ one of them, one of the horde that’s chasing her family, and she sees the looks of horror and disgust when they notice her, and she corners them, and she can’t stop herself from pushing the dagger down, and when she wakes there are tear tracks down her face-

“We’d been running for hours. I- I’ve always been a fast runner, but it was rough, even for me. I knew we couldn’t last like this forever. I, I told Yeza to run. To take Luke and keep heading towards Felderwin. I would break off and lead them away- I,” she doesn’t sob. 

She  _ doesn’t _ . “I was always faster than him. I had more practice running from people. He didn’t want to agree, but. He knew we didn’t have a choice. He gave me a vial of acid. Just the one, he’d had it hidden away in his vest pocket, all this time he’d been waiting for an opportunity to use it, and never found one.”

_ Just in case, he says, pressing the cool vial into her palm. The green liquid almost shimmers in the dark. she can see enough to know his eyes are wide with fear, just like her own. “I love you,” she says, squeezing his arm tight. _

_ “I love you,” he whispers back, voice hoarse, wavering. They stay like this for only a second more, until the screeching and hollering starts to get louder. They seperate, and she turns away, and begins to run, starts yelling when she’s a safe distance from her family, doing everything she can to get the goblins’ attention. A small, selfish part of her she refuses to acknowledge hates that it works so well.  _

“They caught me eventually. I was cornered and they knew it. The leader started to come towards me, I panicked, and I- I threw the acid at him, right in his  _ ugly face _ ,” she can’t help the snarl at the memory, at the surge of fear, terror, but also a deep satisfaction as she watched his face melt, the skin dripping down twisted bone. It was a horrible, visceral sight, and Nott sometimes wondered what it said about her that Veth looked at it and thought  _ good _ . 

“He died. But I was still trapped, and his wife- she was  _ furious _ . She grabbed me, dragged me to a river herself. We were pretty far away from their camp, and, I think- I don’t think she was thinking straight, at that point. She didn’t have any of the tools from the camp, so she made do. They- they drowned me, in that river, but not until- until after-”

_ She can feel the water in her nose, her ears, filling her throat. She tries to breathe, to scream, to make any sort of cry for help, of pain, but she can’t. The water is so cold it burns. She sees spots in the corner of her eyes, and hopes, desperately, to black out. Hopes for a reprieve. She doesn’t get it. Before the darkness can take her completely, she is yanked by the hair out of the water, sputtering helplessly, gulping desperately for air. The goblins sneer, and the leader’s wife snaps at her, razor-sharp teeth glinting with malice.  _

_ “I’m not yet done with you,” she growls, a painful promise in her words, and Veth moans, anguish clear, too weak to do anything but squirm uselessly. The goblin makes a noise, some horrible, nightmarish facsimile of a laugh, and turns away.  _

_ “Make her suffer,” the goblin says, to the hooded woman that’s been standing, still, in the corner, watching Veth’s torment silently. The woman raises a hand. Veth screams. _

Nott can feel herself shaking violently. The memory of her death plays in her mind, over and over and over and-

She jolts at the feeling of a hand on her arm. Caleb is looking at her, his horror and heartbreak and worry palpable. She makes herself lift her gaze; everyone else looks similarly. 

He tugs gently on her arm again, and Nott wants to protest. Wants to throw up her usual, “I’m fine,” and then drink herself dizzy in a dark corner of the cargo hold. But-  _ gods _ , she’s so  _ tired _ , and she just can’t find the energy to protest. So instead, she lets herself be pulled into his lap, and curls up in the worn, ratty, familiar coat. 

She feels the blunt claws of a certain tiefling rubbing circles on her back, and feels the rest of the group cluster around them. She buries herself in that feeling, the protection of friendship, of  _ safety _ and lets herself cry. 


End file.
